Replication Server allows you to copy and update data from a table in one database—the primary—to a table in another database—the replicate.
The primary database is also referred to as the “source.” The
replicate database is also referred to as the “destination.”
To establish a table as the source, you create a replication definition that specifies the location of the data you want to copy and describes the structure of the table in which the data resides.
Before you copy data from the source table, you must also create a duplicate of the table in the destination data server. Then, in the Replication Server that manages the destination table, you create a subscription to the replication definition. A subscription resembles a SQL select statement.
If you do not want to duplicate all of a table’s data, Replication Server lets you specify a subset of columns to copy in the replication definition or use a where clause in the subscription to specify a subset of rows to receive.
You can include replication definitions for related tables and stored procedures in a publication and then create subscriptions against all of them as a group. When you use publications you can organize your subscriptions and monitor status information for all subscriptions in the group with a single command.
You can change the datatype of replicated values using the heterogeneous datatype support (HDS) feature. HDS allows you to translate the datatype of a replicated column value to a datatype acceptable to the replicate data server. You can use HDS in Sybase environments, in non-Sybase environments, and in mixed Sybase and non-Sybase data server environments.
See Chapter 11, “Managing Subscriptions” for information on creating subscriptions for individual replication definitions and for publications. See “Subscription example” for an example of the entire transaction replication process.
